Hidden Harms: Senate Judiciary Testimony of Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage on Meta's VR Child-Safety Research
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Two former Meta researchers, Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, gave sworn testimony to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee describing internal research they say Meta narrowed, edited, or deleted rather than act on. Sattizahn, who worked on VR safety research from 2022 to 2024, told senators internal surveys linked VR use to reports of harassment and unwanted sexual contact, with women reporting these more often than men. Savage, who led Meta's VR youth-safety research from 2022 to 2023, said children using VR headsets were, per her research, exposed to bullying, unwanted sexual contact, and adult content, and that she was discouraged from studying how widespread this was. Both described a legal-review process they said limited what safety findings could be shared. TechKids Foundation cites this testimony as an association between passive, unsupervised VR use and documented risk to minors — not proof that any one platform causes harm.
In internal VR research Sattizahn described in his testimony, just under half of surveyed VR users reported an unwanted or harmful experience — ranging from rudeness to unwanted sexual contact — within a three-week window.
Sattizahn's testimony cited internal survey data in which women reported unwanted verbal sexual advances in VR at roughly two-and-a-half times the rate men reported.
Savage testified that although Meta acquired its Oculus VR technology in 2014, she was the first researcher dedicated to VR child-safety research and was not hired until 2022 — an eight-year gap she described in her statement.
Sattizahn, J. & Savage, C. Written and oral statements to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, 'Hidden Harms: Examining Whistleblower Allegations that Meta Buried Child Safety Research,' S.Hrg. 119-255, Sept. 9, 2025.